SWARTHMORE, Pa. (November 20, 2011) – Dawn Garcia (Brooklyn, N.Y.) was named most valuable player of the 2011 Swarthmore Tip-Off Tournament and Jillian Barrett (Philadelphia, Pa.) led the way with 24 points as the Stevens Institute of Technology women's basketball team (2-1) won a hard-fought 55-54 overtime victory over host Swarthmore College Sunday afternoon.
It shaped up to be a defensive struggle as neither team scored over the first three minutes until Victoria Webber (Silver Spring, Md.) nailed a three pointer. The Ducks' lead continued until the score was 7-6. Then the Garnet went on an eight-point run to make the score 14-7 in their favor. Barrett knocked down a three to stop the bleeding and bring it back within four. In fact Barrett was the only Duck offence for the next seven minutes, scoring seven points in that stretch to keep Stevens close at 22-14.
Garcia hit a three in the final minutes of the half but the teams went to the break with the Ducks trailing 27-18.
Stevens came out of the locker room hot, connecting on their first four field goal attempts in the second, but Swarthmore nearly kept pace as the score was 31-24. In fact, the hosts built their largest lead of the game at 10 with 13 minutes to go. Head coach Bri Fecteau called timeout and Stevens seemed to emerge from the huddle a changed team.
Molly Herforth (Pompton Plains, N.J.) made a jumper, Avis Benjamin (Queens, N.Y.) made good on a layup and Webber hit a jumper in the following minutes, though the Ducks still trailed by eight with less than 10 minutes to go.
The Ducks defense made sure Swarthmore was stuck at 41 pints for over six minutes after that, allowing the Ducks to claw back in. Webber, Barrett and Garcia all helped to fuel the comeback, as Barrett's layup at 5:29 gave Stevens the lead and two more consecutive layups by the senior captain increased it to five.
In fact, Barrett scored the final eight points of regulation, including a clutch free throw to tie the game with three seconds left after the Garnet had regained the lead. It was the first tie of the see-saw battle.
Stevens fell behind again in the overtime, and it was 54-50 with two minutes to go. Again it was Barrett who played the heroine, scoring five of the Ducks seven OT points, including a pair of free throws with 26 seconds left and Stevens trailing by one. Those would turn out to be the final points of the game as the senior earned her way to the all-tournament team, along with Webber and Garcia.
The team will play its first home game of the year on Tuesday, as the Ducks host the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey at 6 p.m.